Air Register Vents 2-5

A couple of years ago, I posted a register vent I made on my scrollsaw.

Since then, I have added a new “toy” to my woodworking arsenal – a CNC Router.

About a month ago I had all the carpeting in the house replaced with solid birch planks and decided that the contractor-grade brown metal vents just weren’t cutting it so I designed four new vents and used my CNC to cut these out.

I used 1/2” thick pieces of Maple, Cherry, White Oak and Chestnut for these pieces.

On two of them I removed the louvers from the original vent covers and added them on the bottom of the wooden ones so I can control the air flow – the other two I just made a simple alignment “frame” on the bottoms since they would be always open.

Finish was spray lacquer on both sides to avoid warping.

Pic 5 shows the maple vent a few minutes after the router was done with it – still a bit of cleanup, but it worked really well! The maple had a bunch of “fuzzies” – the others finished much cleaner.

I reluctantly agreed to redo the flooring on the main floor of our home. After transferring (by hand) three pickup loads of flooring material into the house, I started thinking about the registers and how perhaps I could inject a more interesting woodworking component into this project. I was very excited to see Bob’ first register post from a while back and appreciated PM’ing with Bob on that project. Seeing this post, however, I know I have found something which is going to change my whole outlook to this flooring project. Thanks Bob. Excellent design and execution.

Todd, you can certainly use a scrollsaw as well – I just happened to have a CNC.

As a matter of fact, PM me and I’ll gladly send you the plans, free of charge. :-)

Kelly, Yes indeed they do “class up the joint”. The floors I had installed are “B Grade” solid Birch and have a TON of what woodworkers call “character” – knots, variances in color, etc….. but the registers were just letting the floor down….....

Alan, I hope I sent you enough to get you started in making these. LMK if you need anything else.

Sadly, I have to admit that I’ve never used a scroll saw! I have one downstairs, but I just haven’t put it into use yet. How does that work? For each hole would you drill a starter hole and insert the blade?

Take a look at my first register I did – it was done on a scrollsaw – as a matter of fact, take a peek at the rest of my projects – the vast majority of them were done via scrollsaw, including all the portraits! :-)

I think you should blow the dust off of the saw and give it try – it’s fun when you figure it out!

You’ve got some great projects up. I love the table. I’ll go through them when I have some time.

I guess I need to find time to take on yet another tool/technique! When I was thinking of the registers about a year ago I had no idea how to make the holes and I just dropped the idea. I wasn’t aware of the scroll saw trick. I always assumed it was just a finer version of a band saw!